Watching the historical commission wrangle with issues is much like a classic Irwin Allen disaster flick. All the elements are there and the plot is painfully obvious. The 1972 classic, Poseidon Adventure, gave us a 90 foot tidal wave natural disaster, an upturned cruise ship and a reason for rooting for the eventual survival of the passengers who navigated the usual assortment of death defying traps in order to be rescued.
The historical commission gets the natural disaster of a curator who never makes a meeting, byzantine political meddling and a reason for rooting for the eventual enlightenment of the commissioners who should navigate the unusual assortment of operation stultifying death traps in order to rescue Norwalk’s history.
Like the passengers who chose to wait it out in the ballroom, the feckless trio of Eric Chandler, Dave Park and Peter Bondi are determined to go down with the ship. That ship being, symbolically, Sue Gunn. For some inexplicable reason, they have decided that the Friends of the Norwalk Museum are unworthy of being treated as, say, equals, and have masterminded a maneuver to rescind a request to codify the 30 year plus operating agreement between the city and the Friends. Apparently continuing the he said/she said style of management is the preference here of these three. Gunn says she works 3 days a week, the Friends say they can’t get into the building because she’s not there. Documented hours? We don’t need no stinkin’ documentation! Gunn says she’s vewy afwaid of dat darn puddy cat in the alley. So two people have to be in the museum building before she’ll open the door. But she can’t manage to run a volunteer schedule to staff the museum because it interferes with her other schedule of appointments. I could of course go on. And on. And on. As this situation has for 8 plus years.
But the imprudent trio have indeed come up with documentation, they claim. An operating manual. Ah yes, because the the combined level of expertise of Eric Chandler, Charles Yost, Peter Bondi and Sue Gunn clearly outweigh, say, the expertise of The American Association of Museums. Of course the Norwalk Museum is not a member of the association, because, well, maybe it wouldn’t qualify as a museum because of the way it has been run. For that matter the Norwalk Museum is not listed in most of the state resources for historical research, tourism or associations. And national organizations and associations? Forgotten, because of course Norwalk doesn’t need no stinkin’ outsiders.
Why this is particularly important is that that in the rather dry world of academia, of which historical libraries, museums and organizations belong, accreditation and professional management is what separates the grant getters from the hopeless road-side mammoth ball of twines that proclaim importance without merit. The reason that consultant expertise should be sought is to avoid all the nonsense of agenda driven self CYA. But letting in outside consultants to examine the spotty work of Gunn is like letting in that ole puddy cat. They were vewy afwaid. Afwaid that maybe all those things that don’t happen; regular museum hours, policy discussions, fundraising, grant applications, significant exhibits, marketing, and normalized operations, would somehow be exposed. Well, yes, that’s the point. You can’t improve things without knowing what is wrong, you can’t manage what you don’t know.
Unfortunately politics plays far too much a role in this commission. Often, much of the maneuvers have nothing to do with the actual commission work, it’s the outside interests and alliances that trip the dominos. Lost in all the conspiracies is the reality that Norwalk really needs to start tackling regional economic issues by valuing and exploiting the unique characteristics of the city. The fierce competition for a diverse tax base, retail economies and tourism dollars is only escalating. Norwalk has far more to offer as a city than any of the surrounding towns, yet the mindset of insularity prevents the adoption of regional practices that could position Norwalk as the charming retro industrial victorian city on the sound. Or the revolutionary war inspired space age engineering city on the sound. Or the quaint bucolic colonial village city. The point is that these conversations are not taking place, particularly on the historical commission, because everyone is too busy focusing on the tit for tat minutia.
Standing around in a capsized cruise ship ballroom never proved to be the winning strategy in the Posiedon Adventure. It won’t be here either.
